Magnetic resonance (MR) images acquired during surgery can assist a surgeon to accurately locate tissue malignancies, obtain a biopsy from desired locations and ensure successful tissue removal. Interventional MRI is the magnetic resonance imaging technique (often involving real-time imaging) that allows a surgeon to perform MRI-guided tissue biopsy or surgery. One application of interventional MRI is to guide a surgeon during a biopsy or surgical operation on one or both of the breasts of female patients
Interventional MRI procedures typically require that an MR signal detection coil have large openings so that a surgeon can have access to the surgical site through the coil with biopsy needle or other surgical devices. The need for surgical access through an MR signal detection coil is a significant constraint on the design of the coil. To meet the tissue accessibility requirements of interventional MRI procedures, conventional MRI breast coils are often single-channel simple coil windings having a structural configuration that limits coil performance.
One such example of a simplified breast coil configuration used in MRI is a conventional flat single-loop surface coil. This type of breast coil is typically placed around a breast near the chest wall of the patient. A major disadvantage of the simplified breast coil is that it has very poor field homogeneity. In other words, it provides very poor received signal quality from any tissue that is far away from the loop. Because of these disadvantages, for example, a surgeon may not be able to positively identify or remove malignancies at certain regions of the breast, especially in tissue that is removed from the breast coil.
The signal detection efficiency of a MRI detection coil is important to providing useable tissue images. A higher signal detection efficiency means a better quality signal and a cleaner image which allows a surgeon to see the subject tissues more clearly and make correct decisions regarding the imaged tissues. In this regard, it is known that an RF quadrature type detection coil can provide a much improved signal detection efficiency over the simple single channel coil typically used for interventional MRI surgical procedures.
In interventional MRI it is crucial that an RF reception coil produce high quality, low noise MR signals that will result in good quality high resolution images so that a surgeon can accurately identify, locate and access the desired tissues. A competing requirement for interventional MRI detection coils is that they allow surgical access to the surgical site. The difficulty in providing surgical access is especially difficult for breasts, due to their sizes and shapes. The compromised performance of conventional MRI breast coil arrangements may lead to poor imaging and hence false diagnosis or imprecise surgery. In accordance with the present invention, a novel MRI breast coil and support arrangement is provided that utilizes a highly efficiency quadrature type detection coil arrangement and has an open structure for allowing maximum access to imaged tissues.